Statement by AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka on Enron Case

For Immediate Release
Contact: Alison Omens (202) 637-5018

Statement by AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka
On Enron Case
May 9, 2007

In 2002, the AFL-CIO helped 5,000 laid off Enron workers win over $35 million in back pay frozen by the bankruptcy court.  Those workers lost their jobs, health care and retirement savings as a result of a fraudulent  scheme in which many of our leading financial institutions were  indispensable participants.  Later this year, the Supreme Court will review  the Enron case and will decide whether to take the side of Enron workers or the side of the big banks that worked with Enron to defraud them. 

The AFL-CIO urges the Court to take the view embodied in the Securities and  Exchange Commission's brief in the Homestores case - that if a bank is a  participant in a fraudulent scheme, it can be held accountable in a court of law by its victims.  The alternative is not simply a world where once again  Enron's employees and workers' pension funds are victimized by powerful financial institutions - but a world where those financial institutions are free to do it again.